The Queen's Embrace
by DreamOfZen
Summary: In the last episode of season seven, Daenerys enters the bedchamber of her dear knight Ser Jorah. After the Battle of Winterfell, his guidance and love keep her head above water in the sea of loss that threatens to destroy her. Cover image by marmalademouse of Tumblr.
1. Embrace

**Notes:**

**-Original post date 5/10/2019**  
**-Revised on 5/11/2019**  
**-Added chapters 2 and 3 on 5/12/2019**  
**-Added chapter 4 on 5/19/2019  
-Added chapter 5 on 5/24/2019**

**This was supposed to be a one-shot with just one chapter, but I was inspired and ended up writing some more. I don't know how many chapters there will be, but I'm going to keep going!**

**Enjoy!**

**P.S. ****See this story on Archive Of Our Own for the R-rated version! :)**

**P.P.S. *Interested in collaborating on an original science fiction or fantasy book? I have always wanted to write a novel but lack ideas at the moment, and would love to co-author something unique. Email me at c3sky3 and let's chat!***

* * *

Ser Jorah opened the door to find his queen standing there. He said nothing, uncertain of the purpose for her visit, afraid that the fleeting hope he held close to his heart was but a foolish dream.

"May I come in?" she asked.

He lowered his head in acknowledgement and moved aside to allow her entry, closing the heavy oak door softly behind her, his heart beating against the intricate black armor Daenerys had given him upon his most recent return to her services. He could not find the words to even ask why she was here.

"That armor suits you, Ser Jorah," she said appreciatively.

"Thank you, Your Grace. It was a fine gift. I believe it will serve me well." His voice sounded so course compared to hers.

"I hope it serves you as well as you have served me," she said with a tender smile.

Jorah's heart nearly burst with pride and joy. He had never forgiven himself for sending news of her exploits and location to Varys's little birds, even though Daenerys was but a stranger to him then. When she banished him upon his confession, he had wanted to lay down and die rather than live apart from his queen. Instead, he had captured Tyrion Lannister and brought him before her as a gift, only to contract greyscale during the journey. She had sent him away once more to find a cure; Jorah had gone to Oldtown and endured a torturous removal of his infected flesh at the hands of an apprentice maester. He remembered how the Dothraki had brought him to her, how her eyes had lit up upon his arrival, how she had embraced him for the first time in the years they had known each other. Her forgiveness filled him with gratification.

"Remove it," she commanded, stiffly.

Jorah froze, his heart brittle as glass. She wanted him to bare himself before her. "I don't under-"

"I wish to see how you are healing," Daenerys said, her voice soft once again. "Please." Her beautiful blue eyes were worried, pleading.

Jorah turned away from his queen, struggling to control his fear. He was a brave fighter; even when he and Tyrion had been captured as slaves and sold to the fighting pits, Jorah was confident in his strength. He won every match. But now, faced with removing his armor before Daenerys, he faltered. Whether she knew it or not, she had the power to utterly destroy him. Hiding his trembling hands, he began to remove his armor, piece by piece, setting each one down in the chest at the foot of the bed, until he was left standing clad only from the waist down. Behind him, Daenerys was silent. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly as he found the courage to face her, and turned around.

She gasped at the sight of his scarred flesh, a hand flying to cover her mouth.

Jorah stepped forward to console her, taking her hands in his. In all the time they spent together, they rarely shared any physical contact. Her hands were not forbidden, but even that felt like he was taking something he did not deserve. "It's all right. The infection is gone. I am not in any pain."

"How?" she asked, freeing one hand from Jorah's to caress his ravaged chest with abundant tenderness.

He closed his eyes for a moment at her touch, his entire body tense, then relaxing with gratification. She had breached their separation of her own accord. This contact carried a wealth of meaning. He had to force his eyelids open to look at her. "The infected flesh had to be cut away."

"That... must have been..."

"...excruciating," he finished for her. Plunging deep into his will, he found the bravery to speak the words on his mind, squeezing the queen's hand he still held as the other trailed lightly across his chest. "But nothing can compare to the pain of your absence." There. He had said it. He had laid bare his ultimate vulnerability before her without asking anything in return.

They gazed at each other for a long moment, Jorah's expression somber and fragile, Khaleesi's eyes transforming from sorrow to wounded affection and filling with tears. "Please, don't ever leave me again," she said, her voice trembling.

He had only seen her this broken a few times - when her brother sold her to the Dothraki like a slave, when Khal Drogo had died, and when her dragon had died. Jorah reached out to slide his fingers into her silver-blonde hair, cupping her sweet face. "I will never leave your side as long as you want me there, my queen." In his eyes was a fierce devotion.

Danaerys kissed him, her lips firm with affirmation and passion. He kissed her with fervor, releasing the intense ardor that had been chained in his heart for so long. Jorah would do anything for her. Anything. Tears squeezed their way out between his closed eyelids as they kissed. Her touch became more firm as she realized it would not hurt him. The kiss ended; he was still holding her face with one hand. The other reached around to grace the curve of her lower back, pulling her toward him with a gentle pleading that told her she was still in control in case she had second thoughts about where this was going. She responded by wrapping her slender arms around his neck and leaning into another kiss, surrendering herself completely to her guardian.

* * *

Afterwards, they shared a look of warm compassion and mutual satisfaction. He brushed a strand of her hair from her face and spoke, his words heavy with the weight of his devotion to her.

"I have always loved you."

Daenerys's hair was soft between his fingers as he played with it idly, lying on his side in bed and gazing at her face in adoration. She looked at him, humbled by the depth of devotion evident in his eyes and a little frightened of its ferocity.

"I have seen that look before," she told him, her expression worn out but content. "You were never very good at hiding it."

He gave her a sheepish smile, but said nothing.

"Have I embarrassed the great Ser Jorah Mormont into silence by pointing out his obvious feelings for his queen?"

"You have, Your Grace."

The Mother of Dragons shifted in the bedsheets to put her back against Ser Jorah's scarred chest, nestling herself into his embrace. He wrapped an arm around her waist and sighed into her hair, expecting to wake at any moment from a dream that was now reality.


	2. The Battle of Winterfell

The dead were relentless, their numbers overwhelming. The Dothraki had fallen. The Unsullied had protected the retreat of the army of the North, then fallen back themselves into Winterfell Castle. The trenches were lit, giving the exhausted fighters a brief respite as the dead halted before the fire. It didn't take long for the Night King to send his followers forward into the flames until their corpses snuffed out the fire, allowing the walkers to trample over the fallen and approach the castle walls. They clawed over one another, forming piles along the walls until they spilled over the top to attack the defenders standing on the battlements.

Jorah and Grey Worm had stayed close to the Unsullied warriors, working as a unit to protect themselves and cut down the swarms of skeletons that barreled forward into their weapons. The dragon glass was effective; a single thrust into their rotting bodies was enough to end the horror of their existence. There were just so many... Their decayed flesh knew no fear, but they were filled with a rabid desire to kill. Clawing, stabbing, bashing the army of the living to death with terrifying ferocity.

After hours of fighting, Jorah realized there were no more walkers pouring over the walls. It was eerily quiet.

The ground began to move. No, not the ground - the bodies that covered it. Those who had fallen began to rise, their eyes blue with the magic that reanimated them. Jorah looked at Grey Worm with exhausted apprehension. The battle for life was not over yet.

Grey Worm shouted into the darkness, urging his men into formation. Their voices answered him in unison, a wordless breath of strength and unity as they stood side by side, raising their shields in a line. In moments, the dead were upon them again and the castle grounds became a swirling mess of bones and dragon glass once again.

Jorah was grateful for his endurance as he fought on, stabbing a wight as it came flying at him with dagger raised, swirling to slice another that came from the side. For all his experience and training, there were so many enemies. They had been fighting all night, and the reserve of his strength was nearly gone. He focused on moving and killing with the least amount of effort required.

A horrific sound cut through the battlefield. It was the cry of Drogon on the other side of the wall. Jorah had watched the dragon grow from infancy and had never heard him utter such an anguished cry. If Drogon was wounded, then his queen was in danger.

Luckily, the wights around the castle gate had become few and far between as they were cut down by the phalanx of Unsullied, the only organized fighters left in Winterfell. Others continued the fight in scattered engagements inside the castle and atop the battlements.

Jorah ran to the gate just in time to see Drogon lift off from the ground, covered in wights that clung to his scales and cut him with a hundred daggers. The white form of Danaerys fell from his back and landed hard on the ground. As he fought to get air beneath his wings, Drogon looked down at his mother and breathed fire in a ring around her before he managed to gain altitude and shake himself free of the walkers.

Jorah took off at a run toward his queen and leapt into the ring of fire as it slowly died down and the wights surrounding them began to close in. He offered her his hand; the look in her eyes was pure terror laced with relief at his presence as he helped her stand.

He turned and lashed out at a walker as it lunged for him, beheading the monster and twirling in the air to cut down another. Two came at him at once. He stabbed the first as Daenerys pierced the second over his shoulder with her dagger. Ser Jorah was running on pure adrenaline now, the need to protect his queen, his love, replacing the energy he had lost in the long battle. He fought bravely, but eventually even the adrenaline ran out and he began to swing his sword in short strokes between light-headed staggers, just barely keeping up with the dead as they threw themselves at him and Daenerys.

A scalding pain in his shoulder caught his breath. He had been stabbed. He looked the wight in its cold, dead, blue eyes as it stared at him and pulled the dagger out to stab him again. Daenerys sliced its arm off with her own dagger before planting it in the wight's skull for good measure, sending its bones crumbling to the ground in a heap. Jorah fell to one knee, breathing hard, forcing his good arm to raise his sword in defense as Daenerys stood behind him.

"For the queen!" Grey Worm's voice rose above the din, followed by the united grunt of the Unsullied. They came in a square phalanx at a measured run toward Jorah and Daenerys, mowing down the dead in their path with renewed ferocity.

Jorah could do nothing but block the blade of a wight with his sword as he knelt in pain on the ground. In moments the phalanx opened up and swept around them, dispatching the dead as they went until Jorah and Daenerys were surrounded. They were safe.

The Unsullied stood firm in their circle around their queen and her protector, not allowing the enemy to breach the wall of their shields as they struck out with their glass-tipped spears. All at once, the field was quiet, followed by the sound of clinking bones and steel. Jorah could not see past the Unsullied; he weakly called out to ask what was happening.

"The walkers have fallen, all of them! Arya must have done it. She must have killed the Night King!" The voice of his queen was full of disbelief. Jubilant.

Jorah's head felt so light; the world was tipping. He fell to his side and rolled to his back on the frozen ground, fighting to stay conscious as his queen's face appeared before him, weeping. She cradled his face in her hands, but he could no longer hear the words coming from her mouth as her lips moved above him. He felt a strong breath of cold air, another, and looked past Danaerys to barely make out the giant form of Drogon descending in the darkness to land beside them, his great wings spread out protectively as Jorah's heavy eyelids drew closed.


	3. Aftermath

Ser Jorah woke with a jolt of cold air on his bare skin. He opened his eyes to find a familiar face standing over him.

"My queen!" He tried to reach out and take her face in his hands, but grunted in surprise as his left shoulder seared with pain.

Daenerys took hold of his right hand and brought it to her face, placing it on her cheek where he had intended for it to go. "I'm all right. Rest."

Jorah glanced around. He was lying on a bed with Daenerys sitting at his side, and an array of metal instruments laid out on an endtable nearby. Samwell Tarly stood beside the bed.

"I'm glad to see you're awake, Ser," Sam said. "I was afraid you'd lost too much blood to come back."

Jorah looked down at his shoulder; it had been cleaned and wrapped, but some blood had soaked through the dressing and dried.

"It needs to be changed," Sam said. "Can you sit up?"

Jorah grunted with effort as he sat up in bed. When he spoke, his voice was even more gravelly than usual. "I'm happy to see you survived, my friend." He reached out with his good arm and clasped Sam's forearm in camaraderie. "Looks like I'm in your debt once again."

Sam shook his chubby cheeks vigorously, his tousled black curls bouncing. "Not at all! I wanted to be a maester to help people."

"You're doing a fine job, Maester Tarley," Daenerys said. "Thank you for taking care of Ser Jorah. You've saved his life twice now." She smiled warmly at her protector, grateful he was still alive.

Sam raised his hands. "Oh, I'm not a maester yet. I... didn't finish the training. Being here for Jon seemed more important than scrubbing out bedpans and copying old scrolls."

"Maybe one day you can go back and finish it."

"Perhaps, Your Grace. Perhaps." Sam stepped forward and gently removed the dressing from Ser Jorah's shoulder. Beneath it was a jagged line of sewn flesh.

Jorah raised an eyebrow. "Glad I wasn't awake for that."

Daenerys spoke. "You've been out for hours."

"Got anything to drink?"

"I'll get you some water," Daenerys said, rising to pour some from a pitcher nearby and bringing him a full tankard.

He drank with his good hand while Sam re-wrapped his injury.

"That should do it. Try not to move it too much," Sam told him. "Let me know if you need anything."

"Thank you, Sam," Jorah said gratefully. The apprentice maester left the room, closing the door behind him gently.

Daenerys sat on the bedside once more, taking Jorah's good hand in her own and gazing at him with tenderness. "You seem to have a knack for keeping me alive. Maybe I should keep you around after all," she said with a mischievous smile.

Jorah looked at her beautiful face, framed by silver-blonde curls that hung down to her chest. Her skin and hair were smudged with dirt and blood, but she did not appear to be harmed. He leaned his forehead to touch hers and stayed that way, eyes closed, for several long moments, as he relished the life coursing through her veins. He tilted his head, bringing their lips together in a kiss of penultimate tenderness, the saccharine silk of her lips impossibly soft against his own which were chapped with dehydration.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"Serving you will always be my greatest honor, my queen," he told her.

She stood, taking a clean cloth from the end table and dipping it in a kettle of hot water over the burning fireplace, then returning to Jorah's side to gently wipe his face clean. He was still covered in blood, sweat, and grime from the battle.

"Who else survived?" he asked, afraid to hear the answer.

"Drogon and Rhaegal are injured, but alive. Viserion fell for the last time among the wights when Arya killed the Night King. His bones and broken skull lay scattered on the castle grounds where he died a second time." Tears collected in her eyes and fell down her cheeks.

"He was no longer Viserion when he fell a second time," Jorah said. "His body was just a tool the Night King wielded against us. He was already gone."

"I know. I miss him so much." She paused, then continued wiping his face clean. "Jon Snow lives, as do his sisters Arya and Sansa, and his brother Bran. Tyrion protected the women and children from the dead Starks who rose in the crypt at the Night King's calling. What a nightmare, to see your dead ancestors rising from their graves to kill you..."

Jorah's eyes widened. "I didn't anticipate that."

"None of us did." She continued. "Grey Worm, Brienne of Tarth, the Kingslayer, the one they call the Hound..."

Her voice was lost to Ser Jorah as all thoughts left his mind except one. Khaleesi had survived.

She was the only one who truly mattered.

His entire body was spent, his muscles burning with overuse. He closed his eyes and focused on the warm cloth on his face, until even that sensation faded into the blissful sanctuary of sleep.


	4. Dragonstone

Jorah climbed the countless steps from the rocky beach to the castle of Dragonstone, Daenerys just ahead of him, several Unsullied ahead of her. Careful to pace himself to conserve his meager strength, he yearned for the bed that awaited him in the castle. Their journey from Winterfell back to Dragonstone had given him, the Dothraki and Unsullied no chance to rest or recover from their battle with the dead. Their queen brought them here for just that purpose. Wounds needed time to heal; their minds needed time to process the horrors they had witnessed. The knight held the arm of his injured shoulder close to his body as he ascended the long staircase.

No matter how much Khaleesi wanted to march right up to King's Landing to confront Cersei, she knew she couldn't accomplish that with the men remaining, even if they were fully healthy. Jon's army remained in Winterfell to take their rest, and they would communicate by raven until it was time to liberate Westeros from Cersei's rule.

Ser Jorah looked up at the castle as they approached, the light in the sky just beginning to fade as the sun sank closer to the horizon. The size and design of the giant fortress was truly daunting; it was larger and more hostile-looking than any he had ever seen. It sat high on a rocky island, with a narrow stone staircase descending down to the beach. No matter how many times he came here, he had a feeling it would always inspire the awe he felt upon seeing its grandeur. It was a relic of his queen's Targaryen heritage that would take months and many hands to fully restore it to its former glory. The vast majority of rooms in the castle were still muffled with dust and strung with spiderwebs, their doors still closed for now. Only enough rooms to house their current people had been cleared. It gave Jorah an eerie feeling to walk through the cool stone corridors, feeling the discomfort of their emptiness.

Daenerys retired immediately to her room. Jorah bowed as she closed the door, and headed for the kitchens to find something to eat. The cook was finished working for the evening, but as always there were several workers cleaning up from the day's efforts who gave Jorah a warm bowl of stew and some hearty bread. He tasked one of them with taking some to their queen, and sat alone in the dining hall to eat his late meal.

His mind drifted as he ate. He had seen many things throughout his years, but the battle with the white walkers was something that would haunt his memory forever. There were freshly-dead men maimed with wounds that had ended their mortal lives. Other walkers were in all stages of decay with putrid and torn flesh. The oldest ones were full skeletons, their muscle and sinew entirely rotted away. The dead walked at a slow and sinister pace, a horrifying vision of unstoppable doom, until the Night King sent them running toward the army of the living with unnatural speed, overrunning the Dothraki and Unsullied until the only thing left to do was retreat.

His appetite abandoned him.

The practical part of him forced the remaining bread and stew down, determined to give his body the energy it needed to heal itself. He thanked the worker who cleared his plate and bowl, then rose and walked to the great covered balcony to one side of the dining hall, opening the door and going out to watch the sunset. His cloak cracked in the stiff wind from the ocean as the sky melted, a mixture of purple and red clouds, until the light behind them was extinguished and the vibrant colors faded to black.

Jorah returned to Daenerys's room, standing outside with his hand raised to knock. He longed to hold her in his arms, but decided to let her sleep. It was only their first night back. He was certain they would be spending more time together after their long-awaited union before the battle of Winterfell. She had looked after him the few short nights they had stayed at Winterfell after the battle; her doting attention confirmed their night of lovemaking was no accident. He had been patient for years, and his devoted perseverance had finally won the heart of his beloved. Jorah would allow Daenerys to take the reins in this unfamiliar territory until their relationship was clearly defined and he knew what she wanted and expected from him. She was, after all, his queen.

He entered his own chamber next to hers and fell heavily to sleep.

Hours later he awoke to the sound of a closing door. Rising, he dressed quickly and left his room. Daenerys was nowhere in sight. Where would she be going at this time of night? He had a hunch and hurried back to the covered balcony off the dining hall; it would offer a clear view of much of the castle from its great height. He looked down to see her climbing onto Drogon's back in the great courtyard below the dragons' eyrie. The beast flapped his great leathery wings and rose in the air, heading to the distant, lofty cliff on the far side of the narrow stone path. Rhaegal was already there. In the clear moonlight, Jorah could barely see Daenerys climb down from Drogon and stand between her children.

A low, melancholy crooning came to him on the wind. It was unlike any other sound he had heard in all the years he had watched the infant dragons grow into the giant creatures they were today.

The dragons were mourning their brother Viserion.

The memory of his death came to Jorah unbidden. Jorah and Jon, together with a small company, had gone north of the wall to capture a wight with the purpose of bringing it to King's Landing. Cersei thought the Night King and his army was a fool's tale; Tyrion had realized she would not see the truth of it until she saw one of the monsters with her own eyes. When Jorah had volunteered to go, the day after she had come to his bedchamber and declared her love, Daenerys had all but begged him with her eyes not to leave. He had insisted. _I returned to serve you. Allow me to do so,_ he had said.

Despite the danger of the mission, Jorah was certain he would return to her arms. He never expected to be surrounded by wights, protected only by their inability to cross the frozen lake which shattered beneath their collective weight. He never expected to be rescued by none other than his love mounted upon the great Drogon, flanked by his brothers as the three of them spewed fire upon the army of the dead. He never expected to see one of them fall. The Night King had appeared, hurling a great icy spear into the air with unnatural strength, piercing Viserion's chest. The dragon had cried out in pain, fire and blood spraying from his wound as he fell to the ice and sank beneath the frigid water, dragging Jorah's heart with him. Witnessing such a great and powerful beast succumb to death was a consummate tragedy; they were thought to be gone from the world forever when Daenerys had received three eggs as a wedding gift. Knowledge of his queen's agony in that moment had all but butchered his own heart.

He stood watch over them from afar until Daenerys climbed onto Drogon's back once more. Ser Jorah descended the outdoor stairwell to one side of the balcony and made his way to the landing to await her.

Drogon uttered a low, throaty rumble in acknowledgement of the knight's presence as he landed, gusts of wind from his wings brushing Jorah's rusty hair from his face. Daenerys looked at him from atop the dragon, her expression tired and sorrowful, but warmed with gratitude. She dismounted and half-ran to Jorah's embrace. He held her.

"I haven't been able to truly mourn Viserion until now," she admitted, her face flushed and wet with tears.

Jorah brushed them from her rosy cheeks. "You don't have to maintain the appearance of strength at all times, Khaleesi. Grief is something we all experience in this life. Your allies understand that."

Daenerys raised her chin with pride and replied in a firm voice. "But I am a queen. Shouldn't a queen be disciplined in her emotions?"

"To a degree, yes. People need a confident leader, but no one will bat an eye if their ruler sometimes gets angry or sad. Emotion is human. Hide too much of it, and you risk alienating your people. I don't want them to see you as the Targaryen with an iron heart."

Daenerys drew back to look at him. "I have an iron will, not an iron heart."

"I know, Khaleesi. Better than most. But there have been whispers beyond the stubborn hostility of the northerners to outside influence."

"What whispers?"

Jorah hesitated. "The Tarleys... changed things. Your people know you are here to break the wheel of oppression, and they have seen you do great things. The Dothraki watched you rise from the ashes of Drogo's pyre. The Unsullied owe you their freedom, as do thousands in Slaver's Bay. They have seen your kind heart, your determination, your good intentions." He gripped her upper arm in a gesture urging her consideration. "The people here in Westeros know nothing of you but what they have seen with their own eyes. The Lannister army was not just carrying treasure from their battle with the Tyrells. There were carts and carts of grain. Food that would have fed thousands. Food that you burned. Many will go hungry. Some will die."

"It's not like I could tell Drogon which carts to burn and which to spare," she said with irritation, turning away. "This is war, after all."

Jorah let out a sigh through his nose. "Daenerys..." He rarely called her that and hoped it would convey the urgency and sincerity of his message. "When I heard you had burned a man to death along with his son, I thought it was a lie. A cruel rumor spread by Cersei about the Targaryen woman from Essos."

Daenerys said nothing, but her head drooped with remorse. She spoke over her shoulder. "I wish you had been there with me." After a moment, she turned to look at her closest friend, her advisor, her protector, her lover. "Where is the line between strength and brutality? Weakness and mercy? How do I show them compassion while fighting for the throne to rule them all? Men will die in battle. I cannot avoid that."

"Spare those that you can. If their leaders balk, imprison them. Many will submit to your rule in time."

"I am not here to put men in chains! I would rather die with honor than live in a cell."

"Given the same choice, would some not choose the cell?"

Daenerys was silent.

"I know you are trying to make things simple, but war is not waged in black and white, Khaleesi. There has to be some middle ground. A compromise. Something between surrender and defiance."

Daenerys shivered in the stiff wind. Jorah stepped forward and embraced her.

"Let's get you inside."


	5. Strategy

Ser Davos looked around the room at Daenerys and her other advisers as they stood around the great Painted Table. "The Lannister army has been defeated. Cersei's allies are few and far between."

Varys spoke. "I hope allowing our armies to rest will not give her the time to replenish her own defenses."

"She has gone to the Iron Bank for support to hire the Golden Company from Essos," Tyrion reminded the group with chagrin, remembering how Jaime had broken this news to him in Winterfell. Tyrion had covered this in their last planning session before leaving Winterfell, but laying out all the pieces of the puzzle once again was essential in determining how to put together their plan of attack. "She will pay them well and they will fight well, but they are not devoted to her cause."

Daenerys spoke. "If we can strike soon, we may be able to reach King's Landing before Euron Greyjoy brings the Company across the Narrow Sea on the Iron Fleet." She looked to Jorah, standing beside her. In the years he had spent guiding and protecting her, he was always closeby - but he had not left her side since Daenerys had declared her love for him. "How much time do our people need to rest? How soon can we leave?"

"A week would be long enough," he told her, "but Jon's army will need a few extra days for the trip south."

"Do we know when the Company may arrive at King's Landing?" she asked Tyrion, her Hand.

He tapped his fingers on the Painted Table slowly, not wanting to give her the news. "It could be any day now, Your Grace," he said.

"Then we should leave as soon as we can to attack the city."

Tyrion rubbed his temples in dismay. "We can't attack King's Landing," he said. "Cersei will not meet us in the field. She will hide behind the city walls, forcing us to fight in the streets. If Drogon and Rhaegal go with us, thousands of innocent people could die alongside the troops they decide to burn. There will be nowhere for the people to go. It is a heavily populated city and Cersei has brought more in from the surrounding lands under the pretense of feeding them since the Tyrell supplies were burned. I know my sister... She is using the common folk as a shield. It would be a massacre."

"I have to agree, Your Grace," Ser Davos said through his grizzled gray beard, his hands clasped behind his back, bowing his head as he gave his recommendation. "We can't take King's Landing without significant collateral damage. Many innocent lives would be lost."

Varys's eyes glazed over as he gazed across the room into empty space, likely imagining the streets he knew so well full of chaos, fear, fire, and blood. "It would be a great tragedy. The very people we are trying to free would be swept up and lost in the battle." He looked at Daenerys. "I cannot support a direct attack on the city. The common folk would be the ones to suffer the most for it."

Daenerys looked around the room at her advisers, her expression incredulous. "What would you have me do, then? Sit back and let Cersei laugh at me from the Red Keep? If she won't leave King's Landing, then I have no choice but to take the city. It's the only way I am going to take the Iron Throne. I can't wait forever."

The room was silent. Everyone looked somber and thoughtful. Jorah shifted his stance uneasily in his ebony armor.

"If there is another way, then please, tell me!" she implored.

No one spoke for several moments until Jorah found something to say. He hesitated to speak, but knew she would want his honest opinion. "I can think of no alternative, my queen, but I beg you not to move forward with this plan. The cost of such a victory would be too great."

Khaleesi looked at him, aghast with the betrayal of his disagreement. He did not expect her reaction to his words to be so strong, and the look in her eyes cut him to the core. She no doubt expected him to support her when no one else would, but here he stood, defying her.

She looked at each of her advisers in turn with a growing glower of resentment. Jorah could see the wheels turning in her head as she appraised the men standing around her, and he could guess what she was thinking. Ser Davos had once been a loyal follower of Stannis Baratheon, a contender for the throne until he was defeated in battle. Tyrion was the brother of her greatest enemy. Varys had served every king and queen since her mad father, his allegiance questionable at best. Even Ser Jorah had betrayed her once, although it was before he got to know her and truly pledged himself to her service. Jorah was probably the only one she truly trusted, and yet he had openly defied her before the rest of her council. Perhaps he should have given his opinion in private.

Her expression darkened and she left the room, the footfalls from her delicate boot heels echoing with cold clarity down the stone corridors.

Jorah's heart felt as though it were caving in upon itself. For Daenerys to even consider an attack that would kill thousands of innocent people, she must be deep in the throes of desperation. Her advisers had never before been united against her in such a manner, no matter their good intentions, and she had never withdrawn from a war meeting in this fashion. He had been with her since the beginning, but he feared her mind was in a poor state for her patience to run out now. The loss of Viserion affected her greatly, but he could not understand how it would suddenly make her willing to risk innocent lives. He knew she was eager to claim the throne now that the undead had been annihilated. They were so close to achieving her goal that the Dothraki and Unsullied were itching to go to battle even as they rested to heal their wounds. Was something else on her mind?

Jorah shared a look of consternation with the rest of the men around the Painted Table. "I'll talk to her," he said with resolution, and left the war room.

His queen preferred to spend time alone in her quarters, on the cliffs, or in the dragons' eyrie high on the castle. A glance out a nearby window told him she was not at the cliffs, and the sound of her footfalls as she left the room told him she went down the hall to the right towards the eyrie instead of her quarters which were in the opposite direction.

In a few minutes he was climbing the great spiral staircase in a far corner of the castle. Its stone steps were wide and sweeping, with an empty column of air in the middle looking down upon a fountain built from a natural spring where the dragons came to drink. A smaller fountain nearby provided fresh water for the castle's human occupants, and yet another was just outside the castle kitchens.

At the top of the staircase was a gigantic rectangular room spanning the top floor of an entire wing of the castle. The flat, vaulted ceiling was held up by impressive columns spread around the perimeter with open air between them for the dragons to come and go freely. Three massive columns provided additional support in the middle of the open space, the centermost column also housing a sizable fireplace with a chimney built in. It made the space more comfortable for human visitors in the winter, but Daenerys was really the only one who spent any amount of time in the eyrie with her dragon children.

He found her sitting on the ground, her back leaned against a sleeping Rhaegal who was curled around her to one side of the spacious eyrie. Drogon was not there. He must be out finding food or whatever else dragons do in their free time - roaming the countryside? As Ser Jorah approached the pair, Rhaegal's great eyes slid open halfway to see who it was. The inner eyelids closed before the outer ones as he went back to sleep with a rumble and a breathy sigh through the slits of his nostrils.

"I'm sorry if my counsel was not what you wanted to hear," Jorah said.

Daenerys looked up at Jorah with accusation in her eyes, but before she spoke, her expression softened. "I know you meant well, and I appreciate your honesty. What good is a dishonest advisor?" she said with a passive smile.

"We all want what is best for you and Westeros. I wish there were an easier way to take the throne, but Cersei is not going to give up without using every trick she can possibly conceive. Hiding behind the innocent doesn't surprise me in the least. What does surprise me is that you would actually consider attacking King's Landing knowing what it would cost."

She cast a cold glance Jorah's way. "The iron throne awaits me in the Red Keep. One way or another, I must have control of the city."

"Even if you must take thousands of innocent lives to do it?" It took effort to keep his voice even, bereft of accusation or disbelief.

She stared at the floor.

Jorah was deeply disturbed. She was hiding something from him. It was unlike her to place her own desires above the lives of others. Something was driving her to desperation, and he had a feeling it was more than the losses she had suffered over the years - more than even the loss of Viserion. Cersei had broken her vow to fight beside Daenerys and Jon against the dead in Winterfell, and continued to sit comfortably in King's Landing, ready to defend the throne. As much as the situation stirred the fury of anger in his heart, he knew his queen's feelings would be twofold or more. Still, he could not believe Daenerys would be willing to sacrifice the lives of the innocent in order to claim her lordship over the seven kingdoms - yet here she sat, brooding over it.

He pushed through the sudden revulsion he was feeling. This was Daenerys. Daenerys. Just the sound of her name in his mind quelled his unease. His queen. His lover. The mother of dragons and one true heir to the iron throne. He must find out what could drive her to the edge of madness and guide her back to the realm of rationality. Whatever was wrong, he had a feeling no one else would be able to coax it out of her.

He strode forward and reached out, offering her his hand. She looked at it a moment, then up at him with a pleading expression as she took his hand. He pulled her to her feet and wrapped her gently in his arms, resting one side of his face against her temple as they stood by the sleeping Rhaegal.

"I love you," he breathed. He held the back of her head in his left hand and caressed her with his thumb. "And I know you well enough to know when something is wrong."

She hugged him tight for a long moment, then let out an anguished sigh as she wrapped her arms around his elbow and began to walk toward the edge of the eyrie. She was visibly distressed, but said nothing for a few moments as they walked, clutching his arm. They neared the edge of the eyrie facing the opposite side of the long stone path down to the beach, and Daenerys stopped to admire the view and the salty breeze. The winds were kind today. The side they faced was a steep cliff with the Narrow Sea spread out before them. "I am not the last Targaryen," she said in an even voice. "Jon Snow... is my nephew. His parents were my brother Rhaegar, and Lyanna Stark," she said with a glance back at the dragon child she had named after her dead brother. "He was never Ned Stark's bastard."

Jorah watched Daenerys as she spoke. She was doing an admirable job of hiding her emotion, but he knew what this news meant for her. "How long have you known?"

"Jon told me just before the battle with the dead." Her face was stoic but brittle.

"What does he plan to do?"

"He swore to me he doesn't want to rule. He never wanted to be King in the North, much less King of the Seven Kingdoms. I believe him... but it doesn't matter what he wants. I've seen how the people look at Jon. They revere him." Her sweet face was suddenly twisted with hatred. "The same people look at me as though I were dung on their boot heels! If word spreads, I will never be accepted or respected as the rightful heir."

Jorah took her hand and kissed it. "Then no one else must know."

Daenerys looked at her lover with a depth of dread he had never seen before in all the years he had known her. He wanted to dive into the hole in her heart and fill it for her, make her whole again. "He said he was going to tell his sisters. I begged him not to, but I'm certain he told them. Jon has never been comfortable with hiding the truth, no matter how inconvenient it may be for anyone else. And Sansa... she already hates me."

Jorah frowned. That would be a problem indeed. It was no secret how Sansa felt about Daenerys. She had made it painfully obvious while the Mother of Dragons was in Winterfell. He had a strong suspicion that even if Jon swore her to secrecy, her hatred for Daenerys would overcome her love for her brother - even though he was not her brother after all. "Does anyone else know?"

"Samwell Tarley. He found record of Rhaegar's marriage in a book in Oldtown, and told Jon."

From what Jorah knew of Sam, he would not share this news with anyone other than Jon. He could not guess what to expect of Arya, whose presence in Winterfell had been quiet. She was a girl who kept mostly to the shadows, even in her own childhood home. Sansa was another matter. As a young woman, she had gone through hell many times over and emerged as a hardened, calculating leader.

When Jon came to Dragonstone to meet Daenerys for the first time, Sansa had been left in charge, and from all accounts, she had done an admirable job. She had tricked Littlefinger into believing he was driving a spike between her and her sister, when really Sansa was laying a political trap. He fell into it to his end. She had outlived all of her enemies and seen most of them to their deaths. The question of whether or not Sansa would spread the word of Jon's true heritage was as simple as the question of who she would rather see upon the iron throne.

"Sam would not tell anyone else. Arya, I don't know. Sansa..."

"That is my concern," Daenerys said.

"Were you planning to tell your council?"

"No." She said it coldly, as though she resented his perception of her hidden conflict.

"You're afraid we would betray you in favor of Jon..." he realized with sadness, remembering how she had looked at them with fear and accusation as they voiced their disapproval of her plan to attack King's Landing.

"Not you," she said warmly, reaching up to caress his stubbled cheek. "I would never suspect you." She put her arms around his neck and kissed him with confidence. They embraced in comfortable silence for some time, Jorah setting aside their worries to simply enjoy her closeness as the breeze from the ocean played with their cloaks.

When they finally drew apart, Jorah spoke, looking her in the eye with affection and fealty. "You are my queen, and you always will be."


End file.
